Every business that earns money in India is legally required to keep a record of it. That's not a suggestion — it's written into Section 44AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961, which makes bookkeeping compulsory once your gross receipts cross ₹25 lakh or your income crosses ₹2.5 lakh in a year. If you've registered a company, Section 128 of the Companies Act, 2013 goes further and requires you to maintain proper books at your registered office regardless of turnover.
Most founders don't find out about either rule until a tax notice, a funding round, or a bank loan application asks for financial statements they don't have. Clean books aren't a back-office chore — they're what lets you file taxes correctly, raise funding, apply for a loan, and know, on any given day, whether your business is actually making money.
LegalDev's accounting and bookkeeping service handles this for you. A dedicated accountant maintains your books every month, reconciles them against your bank statements, and hands you the reports you need — without you having to hire, train, or manage an in-house accounts team.
The two terms get used interchangeably, but they're not the same job.
Bookkeeping is the day-to-day recording of transactions — every sale, purchase, payment, and receipt entered into a ledger as it happens. It's mechanical and repetitive by design: get it wrong, and everything downstream is wrong too.
Accounting takes that raw data and turns it into something useful — profit and loss statements, balance sheets, cash flow reports, and the analysis that tells you whether you're actually profitable or just busy.
You need both, and they work best together. A bookkeeper without an accountant gives you accurate data with no insight. An accountant without a bookkeeper is building conclusions on shaky records. LegalDev's plans combine both functions under one CA-supervised team.
If you're switching from another accountant or an in-house setup, we can also work from your existing Tally or Excel records instead of starting from zero.
Plans start at ₹2,999 per month for businesses with low transaction volumes and scale up based on your monthly transaction count, whether payroll is involved, and whether you need GST reconciliation bundled in. Get a quote based on your actual transaction volume — we'll tell you the right plan on a short call rather than guess from a generic price table.
Bookkeeping is the foundation everything else sits on. Once your books are current, these usually follow:
Yes, in most cases. Under Section 44AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961, bookkeeping becomes mandatory once your gross receipts cross ₹25 lakh or your income crosses ₹2.5 lakh in a financial year. Registered companies must maintain books regardless of turnover, under Section 128 of the Companies Act, 2013.
Bookkeeping is the recording of individual transactions as they happen. Accounting takes that recorded data and turns it into financial statements and analysis — profit and loss, balance sheets, and reporting you can actually use to make decisions.
Monthly, at minimum. Reconciling less often makes it harder to catch errors early and means you're often working with a two- or three-month backlog when tax deadlines arrive.
Cash-basis accounting records a transaction only when money actually changes hands. Accrual-basis accounting records it when the transaction occurs — an invoice raised, a bill received — regardless of when payment is made. Most growing businesses in India use accrual accounting because it gives a more accurate picture of what's actually owed and owing.
Yes. We can pick up from your existing Tally, Zoho Books, or spreadsheet records at any point in the financial year — you don't need to wait for a new year to switch.
Standard plans record salary payments as they're paid and reconcile them against your payroll register. Full payroll processing — salary computation, PF/ESI challans, and payslip generation — is available as an add-on if you need it.
Reference: Income Tax Act, 1961 — Section 44AA (statutory requirement to maintain books of account); Companies Act, 2013 — Section 128 (books of account for registered companies).